


As We Dream by the Fire

by missmichellebelle



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boyfriends, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 06:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5616910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/pseuds/missmichellebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you give a boyfriend a Christmas tree, apparently he’ll want to fuck on a disgusting animal hide. Levi learns something new every day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As We Dream by the Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cinnamon_skull](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamon_skull/gifts).



> my incredibly late entry for the Ereri Secret Santa over on tumblr - my gift to cinnamonskull. no smut, unfortunately, not quite up my alley, but. I hope she likes it anyhow. ;A;

“Well…” Levi says, breaking the silence. “This is… Quaint.”

And by quaint he means dark. And cold. And empty. And secluded. And probably incredibly dirty, no matter how many times Eren had assured him it had been cleaned and aired out in preparation for their arrival.

He sniffs. It still smells plenty stale to him.

“It, uh…” Eren shifts his weight beside him, attempting to rub some warmth into his arms even with the various luggage draped over his body. “It just needs some lights, and a fire, that’s all.” His voice is bright and optimistic, but even _he_ seems to be rethinking this whole cabin-in-the-woods thing.

It had been his idea, like most things. Levi rarely has ideas, and when he does, it’s for going to a certain restaurant for dinner or making plans with friends they haven’t seen in awhile. Eren’s ideas tend to be a little more… Elaborate. A hot air balloon date for their anniversary, or an impromptu eight hour road trip to visit Armin up at Stanford.

So when he’d proposed spending Christmas, and therefore Levi’s birthday, in a cabin away from everyone and everything, Levi had been hesitant to give the go-ahead.

After all, the air balloon thing had never panned out due to rain and Eren’s car had broken down somewhere around Fresno and they’d been stranded there for hours.

But the gift of spending his birthday, and the holidays, with no one but Eren was a little hard to pass up. Especially because it’s so fucking hard to say no to Eren most of the time. Besides, someone has to be there when everything goes wrong. It might as well be Levi.

“There!” Eren grins as he finds a light switch, which just might make the cabin look more welcoming, after all. It looks exactly the way a cabin in the middle of a snowy forest would look, and Levi weaves casually around the furniture, looking above and below for signs of anything out of place—a cobweb, the shimmer of dust in the air.

“I’m a little bummed there isn’t a tree,” Eren prattles, filling the silence with his heavy footsteps and chatter as he deposits the bags onto the couch. “I didn’t even think to ask about it… Hey, do you think they’d just let us chop down a tree and bring it in here?”

Levi’s skin crawls at the thought. It took dozens of conversations for Eren to convince Levi to let them have a real tree in their apartment, and he still considers throwing it out at least twice a day.

“No,” Levi responds flatly, making his way to the large stone hearth to inspect it. That is until his foot collides with what appears to be a giant mass of fur and he lets out a hiss as he rocks back a step. “What the _fuck_ is _that?_ ”

“What’s what?” Eren asks, hopping over as the excitement of his initial plan rekindles inside him. “The fireplace? Does it burn wood?” His voice escalates, and he’s already peering inside the hearth happily when he notices that Levi isn’t even near it. “Levi—oh.” Eren looks down. “No fucking way, a bear skin rug!” Eren crows, reaching down to pet at it, and just watching Eren touch it makes Levi’s skin crawl.

“Eren.” Levi doesn’t even know why he’s saying his name, only that it comes out partially strained and scolding while also a little bit desperate. Fuck, he needs to get a hold of himself. Even if Eren is running his hand over the dead pelt of a fucking animal and looks about five seconds from rubbing his entire body all over it with the careless ease that Eren approaches most matters in life. Levi reaches forward and grasps him by the shoulder before he can do just that.

Eren turns wide, curious eyes up at him, and tips his head to the side curiously so that the warm skin of his cheek presses into Levi’s winter-chilled fingers.

“It’s not real,” Eren tells him, and Levi grits his teeth and looks away. Even if he should expect it now, after two years of dating and numerous years of friendship before that. The way Eren can read him—or, to be more accurate, leaves Levi vulnerable enough to show what he’s feeling rather than mask it.

“We should get a fire going,” Levi diverts, and he watches Eren close his eyes, nuzzle Levi’s fingers one more time, before nodding and shuffling towards the fire. Levi’s hand stays extended in the air for just a moment as he flexes his fingers at the sudden loss of Eren before he lets it drop back to his side before Eren can see what he’s doing. “Are we—” Levi swallows and clears his throat. “Do we need fire wood?”

He doesn’t remember seeing any stacked near the cabin, and hopes the resort property that put these cabins together had the common sense to include central heating despite its misplacement in the rustic setting. They can’t honestly expect everyday tourists to know how to put together a fucking fire.

“Nah.” Eren sits back on his heels and frowns. “It’s fake.” He sounds so disappointed that Levi almost throws reason out the window and goes to chop some firewood. “It looks gas, at least.” And just like that, Eren is popping back to life (and his feet) before Levi can do anything rash. “There’s probably matches and a key somewhere around here…” He starts to rummage around on the mantle, and Levi stands there, gripping his own elbows and watching him. There is a very sudden squeeze on his heart, and the urge to go to Eren, to wrap him up in his arms, is immediate and compulsory—as it normally as, when it happens, but even in the seclusion they are in, Levi doesn’t give in to it.

He stands back, and watches Eren’s furrowed eyebrows and declaration of happiness when he finds what looks like the metal backing to a wind-up toy, and let’s himself smile warmly at the picture before him.

When he turns back to Levi, brandished a box of matches with a triumphant grin on his face, he stops, the look fading into something no less happy but much more curious.

“What?” He asks, unable to stop smiling around the word, and Levi just shakes his head, reaching out his hand across the distance between them.

“Nothing,” he responds simply, and Eren blinks at him but takes Levi’s offered hand without question, the warmth of his fingers enveloping.

“ _Shit_ , you’re freezing,” Eren hisses, squeezing Levi’s hand several times before relinquishing it. “I really need to get this fire going.” Once more, his face is pinched in concentration as he takes out a match.

“I think— _dammit_ ,” he curses as he fails to light the match. “I think there’s also a fireplace in the— _mother fucker_.” He snaps the first match in half and takes out a new one.

“There’s a fireplace in the mother fucker?” Levi teases, and Eren shoots him a look.

“ _No_. There’s a fireplace in the bedroom, but we probably shouldn’t— _are you fucking kidding me?_ ” Eren nearly hurls the entire box of matches onto the ground, but wilts before he can complete the motion, and instead holds it out to Levi. “ _Levi_ ,” he whines, and Levi rolls his eyes but takes the box.

“The fact that you can’t light a match makes me feel incredibly old,” Levi drawls, as if he’s been alive longer than the fucking lighter.

“It’s the 21st century, all right? They should have fucking lighters,” Eren growls in response, and Levi rubs his back as Eren kneels down to turn the gas on. He doesn’t point out that Eren should have done that before attempting to light a match, but doesn’t say as much. Just strikes the match and tosses it in the hearth, and they both watch the flames burst into life and wash warmth over them just as quickly.

“So lights, a fire…” Levi ticks off, looking around. It _does_ make the cabin seem a lot better. Much more the cozy getaway that Eren had initially spoke of, not that _cozy_ is a term Levi can apply to most of the spaces in his life. Cozy implies clutter, and mismatch, and the apparently charming application of age and dust to things like furniture and infrastructure that people find appealing for some reason.

Then again, standing amidst it and ignoring the realities, Levi can understand why.

“We really are just missing a Christmas tree,” Eren murmurs, sidling up to Levi’s side and settling a hand on the jut of Levi’s hip. Levi huffs at him, lifting his arm with put-upon reluctance so that Eren can press closer to his side. Eren is really too tall for this, but he insists on doing it, anyway, and he rarely makes a comment about how Levi is holding onto Eren’s shoulder more than his arm is draped across them.

Unless he’s in a particularly snarky mood, that is.

“If you are longing for the smell of pine, stick your head outside.” They are surrounded by trees. Levi is sure some of them are probably pine.

“Not really—I mean I like it,” he’s quick to correct, because one of his key arguments for them getting a real tree in their apartment back home had been how much he _loves_ the smell of pine, “don’t get me wrong. It’s great. But I just love the way a Christmas tree makes me _feel_ , you know?”

No, Levi doesn’t know. He doesn’t have the same fond, childhood memories that Eren does. The sight of a Christmas tree doesn’t bring to mind the images of crackling fires and hot chocolates and piles of brightly wrapped gifts. Levi’s Christmases had never looked like that.

Well, until recently, that is. Since he and Eren have become friends, and, more-so, when they started dating. It’s not enough to entirely replace the cold, empty memories of Christmas—of his _birthday_ —from when he was young, but he thinks, after enough years, it just might be.

Levi makes a noise in the back of his throat, happy that Eren can’t see his face on the chance that thoughts are displayed there the way they always seem to be in Eren’s presence.

“Go put on that god awful Christmas sweater you insisted on bringing with you, then,” he suggests instead. An idea tickles at the back of his mind, and he spits it out before he can spend too long dwelling on it. “And… Maybe we can go into town in the morning and get a tree.” If the feel of Eren’s body beside his wasn’t something he loved, he’d wish he wasn’t quite so close to him right in that moment. That he could put some physical distance between himself and how much he fucking loves this idiot.

(And how much he would fucking do for him, too. Sometimes it’s that facet that terrifies Levi the most.)

“Wait, really?” Eren’s hand slips from Levi’s hip, and then he’s gone—not long enough for Levi’s arm to fall completely back to its resting place, but just long enough to twist Levi around and look him in the eye, to pull their bodies flush again.

The grin on Eren’s face is wide and bright as a child’s, and Levi wants to press closer and bask in the joy of it.

“Well as one shit head told me recently, you can’t have Christmas without a Christmas tree.”

“He sounds wonderfully clever. And smart. And sexy as hell.” Eren presses their forehead again, his smile softening into one that Levi loves just as much.

“He wishes,” Levi teases back, voice nearly as dead flat as it usually is when he’s taking the shit out of Eren, but the warmth of the fire and Eren’s body so close to his makes it hard to keep it out of his voice.

“Shut up,” Eren bites back, and, instead of giving Levi the option to do so himself, makes sure of it by kissing him immediately afterwards. Kissing Eren, Levi has long since discovered, is like swimming in the ocean. It’s being caught up in currents that can’t be controlled, or washed over by waves again and again. And while Levi is very much an active participant, a lot of it is letting nature take its course and being overwhelmed by it all.

It doesn’t stop Levi from welcoming the feeling every time, of getting lost in it completely. In fact, he’s grown very used to being overwhelmed. It’s practically his normal state of being these days.

“You know,” Eren starts when they break apart and Levi comes back to himself, mind snapping back into sharpness like a rubber band. He’s gripping Eren’s upper arms and leaning his weight against his torso—he doesn’t remember doing either thing. “Bear skin rugs are supposed to be _really_ comfortable.”

Levi rocks back on his heels, pulled out of the depth of Eren and no longer drowning, and fixes his boyfriend with a firm stare.

“No,” he replies sternly, eyes sharp, before Eren even has the chance to articulate his plan in full.

“But—”

“Eren, the second any of my bare skin touches that _thing_ is the second I dose myself in an hour long shower. _No_.”

“…that doesn’t sound like a _bad_ thing.”

“For fuck’s sake— _NO_.”

If you give a boyfriend a Christmas tree, apparently he’ll want to fuck on a disgusting animal hide. Levi learns something new every day.

**Author's Note:**

> [read, reblog, and like on tumblr](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com)


End file.
